Another of the reasons I kinda-sorta wish I was at Interbike is this: Rivendell’s Grant Petersen is bringing a new not-a-mountain-bike bike to the show on Tuesday.
This morning the old 20-watt bulb flickers to life so off I go and hey presto! There it is (scroll down a bit some more). Before you do, take a moment to appreciate the permalink.
So why would I want to go all the way to Reno to clap my peepers upon the Rivendell Gus Boots-Willsen? Because, sez Grant: “We won’t submit it to magazines for review. Their standard isn’t ours.”
I think he’s mostly talking about the racing mags here, but you never know until you ask, and I haven’t asked. Yet.
But the Gus sounds like it’s right up my alley. Trail. Whatever. Again, Grant:
The Gus Boots-Willsen is NOT a mountain bike. It’s a HILL bike, which is just a mountain bike stripped of the technology necessary for survival during super aggressive riding. … Boots is for fun, travel, exploring, so it doesn’t need the spring, hinges, and hydraulics.
If you’re at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center, swing by the Rivendell booth (2467) and say to Gus and Grant for me.
This morning, when I should have been risking life and limb motoring to Reno via U.S. 550 and U.S. 50, a.k.a. The Loneliest Road in America, I took a little spin down Memory Lane, which is much easier on the kidneys.
Yes, it’s that time of year again.
Back in 1997, the pre-Interbike issue of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News ran a whopping 150 pages, more than three times this year’s 46 (and the pages were bigger back then, too).
It was an embarrassment of riches, so much so that the editors awarded me some extra space to play with, probably because they had run out of actual news to plug the holes between the ads.
Thus, my “Shop Talk” cartoon, ordinarily a simple black-and-white strip at the bottom of the Editorial & Comment page at the back of the book, took over an entire page of the September 1997 issue, and in full color, too.
The resulting CMYK image file was so friggin’ huge that I had to break the sonofabitch into segments to squeeze it through our lo-fi Innertubes outside Weirdcliffe for deposit upon the BRAIN trust in Fanta Se (click the image to see the big picture).
Back then I was drawing cartoons for the Show Daily, too. But that’s another story.
Marc Sani, the semi-retired co-founder of the trade magazine, has stepped in as interim publisher. Given the present economic climate, and with Interbike Reno just around the corner, this must feel like climbing out of a hot tub and into a piranha tank, wearing a pork-chop Speedo.
I’ve done bits of this, that and the other for Sani and the gang since 1992. Alas, the mag’ has dwindled, in tandem with the trade it covers, and so I do a good deal less of it now than I once did. In fact, I’m down to drawing the “Shop Talk” cartoon at the back of the book, period, end of story.
But that’s the carefree life of the independent contractor for you. Easy come, even easier go. Happily, I also contribute to Adventure Cyclist, and I married well, so we will not lack for kibble in the dish here at El Rancho Pendejo.
The remaining full-time BRAINiacs are not breathing so easily, especially after such a high-profile departure, with so much at stake.
So here’s hoping for better days. Maybe Marc will roll nothing but sevens in his old hometown next month.
I’ll be skipping the show this year. Adventure Cyclist expects slim pickings in the touring category, and BRAIN hasn’t paid my freight in forever, a cost-benefit calculation that keeps coming up snake eyes for Your Humble Narrator. In lean times the last thing you want is an ill-mannered, off-the-leash cur snarling at the customers as you try to keep the bank from taking the bike shop.
Le Shewe Bigge has shifted north from Las Vegas to Reno for 2018, and I can’t be the only person who finds it amusing that Interbike went there to get itself a divorce from Sin City. Still, I’m curious to see how it works out.
There’s much chin music about an ongoing “Reno-ssance,” the local spin on “gentrification,” which itself is the scenic route to “get those poor people out of sight, they’re scaring the tourists and playing hell with property values.” See Bibleburg, Duke City, et al.
For instance, in The Biggest Little City in the World one may enjoy a nifty Riverwalk District that skirts the Truckee, where the John Laws have been running off homeless campers, unfortunates who may be traveling by bicycle because they have to, not because it looks like fun.
Novelist and musician Willy Vlautin has written about people like these who seem to be missing out on the “Reno-ssance,” and so has Our Town Reno, a production of the Reynolds Media Lab, part of the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada-Reno. They taught me a new word: “artwashing.”
It’s been years since I last visited Reno, en route to and/or from visits to friends in Northern California. It always felt like a rest stop between Here and There, not a destination in its own right. I’d camp at the Motel 6 West, and dine at some hippie joint down off Sierra, or maybe Virginia, I don’t remember. Vegetarian fare, heavy on the garlic to ward off the vampires.
Come morning I’d grab a cup of joe and a tank of gas and get the hell out of Dodge. Which, as it turns out, seems to be mostly what all these tourist traps want from us. Howdy, partner! Got any money? Keep moving.
Before long the last place in the country without a riverwalk, legal weed and a bespoke artisanal microbrewery will be Ash Fork, Arizona. You will not see Interbike in Ash Fork anytime soon, no matter how bad the bike biz gets.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (MDM) — To e-bike, or not to e-bike: That is the question. …
We all know the e-bike is the latest and greatest entry in The Next Big Thing™ sweepstakes. Previous contenders include mountain bikes, cyclocross bikes, single-speeds, city bikes, cargo bikes, fatbikes, etc., et al., and so on and so forth (thanks for playing).
Some of us think you can’t sell a certain subset of Americans a two-wheeler if it doesn’t have an engine — and sometimes, not even then (Harley sales hit a five-year low last year).
That said, in comments Comrade Herb warns: “Let’s all be careful and not snark too much about e-bikes. Lord [knows], anything that gets people out of the house and out from behind their SUV’s wheel is a good thing. And if it keeps my local bike shop alive I’m more than happy to go along with the addition to the two-wheel choices.”
And Consigliere Larry adds: “I’ve boiled my e-bike opinion down to this: E-bike instead of car? Wonderful. E-bike instead of bicycle? Not so good.”
Maybe this is the ticket: When it comes to commuting or cargo, a little electrical assist is preferable to dinosaur drive.
CyclingTips tech editor James Huang said on Twitter yesterday that he’s been living the e-cargo-bike life since January 2016, adding: “No other bike in the fleet has as big an impact on my life as that one, no question.”
The bike that most recently caught his eye was the Tern GSD. James first saw it at Eurobike, and the rest of us saw it at Interbike, and I have to admit it was impressive. With MSRP starting at $4,000 the GSD can haul kids, and cargo, and it can tour — the Bosch motor with dual batteries is said to have a range of more than 250km, which is further than I plan to travel on my meat-powered machine today, or even this week.
But questions remain. Who’s gonna buy it? And who’s gonna sell it?
I’ve heard some folks say the e-bike is a natural fit for cycling’s aging demographic, which means they’re hoping to pitch it to the same faces they’ve seen under helmets since hairnets were cool. Others say the e-bike is attracting an entirely new customer.
And still others want nothing to do with the goddamn things, wary of the sales-and-service downsides of becoming an early adopter. Some of these folks might be stuck holding fatbikes they can’t unload, or worried about the rules, regulations and fees that Big Gummint might decide to tack onto these beasties should they begin turning up on America’s streets in quantity.
Are these shop owners missing out? Ceding TNBT™ to specialty e-bike retailers, or motorcycle dealerships? Yamaha’s in the game now, and the bike biz is basically a rounding error on that balance sheet.
What are your thoughts? Anyone out there own an e-bike, or sell ’em? Give us the buzz in comments.
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